At first glance, and without reflection, this line in the Our Father can be confusing. Why would our God, whom Francis, in the first verses of his reflection on the Lord’s Prayer, describes as “…Supreme Good, the Eternal Good, from Whom all good comes …” lead me into temptation? In my own prayer and study, and with good spiritual direction, I have come to a better understanding of its meaning.
In Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the first definition of “trespass” is “a violation of moral or social ethics, especially sin.” In the Our Father prayer, it means those sins or wrongs committed against us. These are the moments when people injure us, let us down, break our trust, and/or hurt our feelings. For St. Francis, forgiveness is not a simple task. It is a deep, spiritual action that requires God’s intervention. Francis gives us a gentle, structured way to process and let go of hurts: We have to decide to choose love over hate.
We all need forgiveness. Francis underscores the magnitude of God’s power to forgive and the limitlessness of His mercy. He seems to be reassuring himself, and us, that no matter how sinful we feel – and are! – the Father is ready and able to show us mercy and forgiveness.
Each day, God the Father offers us countless moments of grace, but none more profound than the gift of the Eucharist, His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, given for us. In Holy Communion we receive not only spiritual nourishment, but the living presence of the One who loved us unto suffering, death, and resurrection.
A Prayer Inspired By the Our Father From (The Undated Writings) FA:ED 1:158
St Francis used this passage in the Lord’s Prayer to emphasize our responsibilities under the first commandment, to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole strength, and the second, to love our neighbor as ourselves. St Francis’ transcendent strategy of “Seeking Your glory in everything” is expressed in the Canticle of the Creatures, where all creation sings of God.
“Your Kingdom come” is first a prayer for the fullness of God’s everlasting kingdom, but it is also a call to recognize and serve His kingdom already present among us. The kingdom is wherever the King is known, believed in, and worshipped. For those who pray these words, the petition carries both hope and responsibility: Your kingdom come, my kingdom go.
When we pray “holy be Your name,” we ask that God’s name be honored not only by our words, but also by the way we live. St. Francis reminds us that the more deeply we come to know God, the more clearly we recognize His blessings, promises, majesty, and judgments. As we give thanks for His presence in our lives, our relationship with Him deepens.
We can never be certain how St. Francis of Assisi envisioned heaven and the majesty of God. Francis was a medieval man, and his understanding of the cosmos was radically different from ours. But for centuries, Christians had accepted a model of the universe as one constructed with the Earth at the center, and the Sun, the Moon, and the planets in separate, concentric spheres moving outward to the sphere of the stars.
As we continue our celebration of the “Easter of St. Francis,” our attention now turns to his relationship with God. For the theme of this issue of the TAU, we have chosen the Prayer Inspired by the Our Father (FA:ED, vol.1, p.158). This prayer is one of the clearest windows into St. Francis’s inner spirituality: contemplative, Trinitarian, and centered on God’s overflowing goodness. It is an authentic Franciscan text preserved in the earliest manuscript collections and universally accepted by modern scholars.